Disclaimer: see chapter one. A/N: Right, something's still funny with my chapters - what's a default chapter, anyway? - But I'll just hope something adjusts itself and clears everything up . . . If not - - help!! This might be a bit long, by the way. Octavian Brown is also my creation, obviously.

After History of Magic came Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall had at last returned to her usual teaching job after being sent to a secret place with a secret message on a secret mission. None of the students missed her much; Ludo Bagman had taken over. Though considerably aged, he made class fun, such as making them transform wedges of cheese into rubber chickens, which they threw out the window onto unsuspecting people who were taking a stroll on the grounds. He himself wasn't very good and relied heavily on the students' information, which was often incorrect. Heather, the brilliant one, had to raise her hand and set Ludo right whenever he tried to teach them the wrong spell.

Today, however, the Professor was back in her rightful place and, after greeting the students and informing them that she could tell them nothing about her absence, set about teaching them the theory of something or other. Lily was too distressed to take proper notes. Even though she had promised herself to concentrate on her studies instead of Thomas and Heather, she found herself stuttering stupidly at the Professor when asked what she was staring at.

"The - I - well, the board - " Lily cleared her throat and tried to take up a commanding tone. She often found she got her way in this voice. "Nothing, Professor."

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrow suspiciously and turned back to the board to write something about the theory of legal impersonation. Heather was copying notes so quickly it seemed as though smoke was rising from her quill.

So Thomas had chosen to ask out Heather. How did he even know her? Lily racked her brain but couldn't remember a single occasion where Heather had even mentioned Thomas, besides to comment on his good looks.

Lily almost sighed again, then caught herself. She'd been sighing for the past fifteen minutes, and her surrounding classmates had been looking at her sideways, wondering if she was asthmatic. Lily felt frustrated again. No, Heather definitely didn't know Thomas as well as she did. Did she know that he had three light freckles on the underside of his wrist? Did she know the exact brown of his eyes? Did she know that he was in Advanced Herbology? Did she know that he was the only son of Draco Malfoy?

Lily caught herself again before she got carried away. Of course she knew he was the son of Draco Malfoy; everybody knew that. But did she know the stories of her father's grudges against him? That he suspected Draco of being a double agent? No, nobody knew that except Lily; Professor Granger, who had told her; and Mr. Weasley.

Sometimes Lily wondered if she blamed Thomas for his father's actions so many years ago. She knew Draco had been cruel to her father. To Harry Potter. The fallen, shamed, dead hero.

"Lily?" Shawna's voice floated over the sudden rustling. Class was dismissed. "Look, are you okay? You seem kind of dazed."

"What, are you so surprised I could get a date?" Heather snorted. "Have I shocked you so badly?"

"You've got a date?" exclaimed a startled voice behind them. They turned to face Octavian Brown, who suddenly blushed. "Just interested, that's all."

"Yes," Heather said, a touch of defensiveness in her voice. "Jeez, why does everyone have such low expectations of me?"

"It's not that, I just - I was just curious." He rushed out before Heather could question him further. She turned to Lily.

"So, why the sudden quietness?"

Lily looked embarrassed. "It's nothing, I'm just tired." She gave a bad fake yawn, convincing neither of her friends, but neither pressed the matter. Heather immediately plunged into gushing about her upcoming date once more, allowing Lily more time to get down to the root of her feelings while inserting the proper comments at opportune times.

"Yeah," she offered, staring at her feet.

"And he's so cute!" Heather squealed so loudly a couple of first years stared at them. "I can't believe he asked me out. I mean I hardly even know him, except maybe from a distance!"

"Maybe he was admiring you from far away," Shawna said. "Like, he liked you but he couldn't bring himself to ask out a Gryffindor, and he studied your every move from across the room and asked people about you and stuff. Oh, that's so romantic."

"Yeah," Lily said again, this time staring at the filthy stone floors. Filch's knees often bothered him so much he was unable to mop, but nobody else volunteered. He liked to give out mopping punishments to students found possessing any of the now six hundred items listed on the poster on his office door.

"So what are you going to do, go to Hogsmeade?" Shawna inquired.

"Well, he said he'd get back to me, he just wanted to know if I'd go out with him, but we didn't have much time to talk because we both had to get to class!" Heather exclaimed, all in one breath.

"Maybe you can talk to him at lunch! Only one more class period until you see him again!" Shawna cried.

"Yeah," Lily inserted once more, studying her fingernails. "Well, I'll see you in a bit, I have Divination now, and you two have Muggle Studies, so see you!" She turned left and walked down a crowded corridor. She could hear their high-pitched voices three hallways later. She forced herself to snap back to reality. It felt as if Thomas was cheating on her, even though he'd never actually had a conversation with her. She sat down in a chintz armchair close to a window as she usually did. She found a slight breeze helped her to breathe. Now that Lord Voldemort was back in power, Professor Trelawny had slowly increased the amount of perfume in her room year by year, until the students complained to Professor Granger. The Headmistress had set a limit on the perfume amount, but Lily still felt light-headed whenever she climbed that silver ladder. The window let in a lovely spring breeze, and Lily took in the smell of April flowers.

"Good morning, my dears," Professor Trelawny said in a misty voice. She emerged from behind a curtain, jingling as she walked. She was still collecting various necklaces and scarves, and now resembled a coat rack wrapped in silk and glass beads rather than a delicate insect. She still wore the ghastly glasses, which had become a bit of a joke within the Hogwarts population within the past decade. She nevertheless felt it necessary to behave mysteriously around her students.

"I have been gazing in my crystal ball," she announced, lowering herself into her own special armchair next to the fire. "And I have seen horrible sights, and even death, my dears." She waited the proper amount of time for this information to settle in and shock the students. "And secrets. I see many secrets within these walls."

Lily snapped to attention. What had her note said? "Don't moan about secrets." What a stupid thing to write. As if she would waste her time thinking about what it meant. Still, it was so obscure it bothered Lily. Her head suddenly seemed so full of thoughts she felt as if she were about to explode. She managed to catch the last of Professor Trelawny's words: "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has discovered someone who threatens him, someone who has the potential to defy his power, and he has vowed to destroy this person." Her voice lowered strangely with this last sentence. The students looked at each other apprehensively, wondering why her head had dropped to the side.

"Is she dead?" someone asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"No, stupid, she's breathing," Matilda's voice snorted. "Must you make it so obvious that you hate this class?" She stood up and prodded the Professor, awkwardly shaking her shoulder. The chaotic noise her beads made when shaken woke up Professor Trelawny, who apologized profusely for nodding off on them.

"As I was saying, my dears . . . Can anybody tell me what I was last revealing to you?" she inquired uneasily, adjusting her glasses.

"You said that You-Know-Who found someone who threatened him or something," Octavian answered.

"And that they have the ability to defeat him, and that the Dark Lord has vowed to destroy them," Lily added.

Professor Trelawny frowned. "I believe, my dears, you are pulling my leg, so they say, because as I remember, I was revealing to you what was revealed to me in my crystal ball." She coughed into her hand and threw Lily a suspicious look. "I saw secrets in these halls. You all have secrets, and it was revealed to me to help you discover them, my dears. For you can have secrets without knowing it. Please uncover your crystal balls and let your Inner Eye take over . . ."

Lily stared into the glass sphere, feeling stupid. All she saw were clouds of fog, as usual. But then, suddenly, she saw a shape. She leaned closer, surprised and intrigued. The shape took a sharper form, and she gasped as she saw that it was her grown father. He was holding a woman in his arms, and Lily observed that the woman was pregnant. She couldn't see her face, but assumed it was her mother. She leaned closer, her nose nearly touching the cool surface of the crystal ball. The view, as if it were a camera, revolved around the scene so Lily could see everything.

Harry Potter was holding his pregnant wife in his arms tightly, his wand in his right arm. His eyes were shut tight with concentration, and her face was buried in his black robes. He was muttering something very quickly, and his wife suddenly began to glow. She stepped back from him, and both of them looked down at her slightly rounded stomach.

Lily had leaned in too close, and her nose really did touch the crystal ball's surface. Immediately the gray clouds swirled in, blocking the scene from Lily's vision. She was deep in contemplation again; her head ached from thinking so much.

She had just seen her father in a crystal ball. It looked as though he were whispering sweet nothings in his wife's ear, but Lily toyed with the idea of a charm or a hex or a curse. A charm to protect me, she thought, so I'd be born safely, even if my mother died. Maybe a curse to kill my mother? No, that wouldn't be right . . .

She jumped slightly in her seat when she realized she had witnessed the only image of her mother she had ever seen. Lily had her mother's eyes.